But, hey, if you want to be a Hollywood whore, you do what your pimps want–and with the TPP, the Hollywood studio Macks demand two things: Dodd puts on the ho heels and anyone file sharing goes to jail.

penalties that include sentences of imprisonment as well as monetary fines sufficiently high to provide a deterrent to future acts of infringement, consistently with the level of penalties applied for crimes of a corresponding gravity

So what’ya say we throw you in jail for 10 years and fine you $1 million? Not enough of “a deterrent?” How about a trillion?

The draconian language of this provision is, of course, its virtual guarantee that the enforcement is going to be virtually impossible without imprisoning a shitload of people, so I have a proposal of my own.

Hollywood, if you want this deal, I want to back you up by arresting and imprisoning every single exec and producer who’s stolen ideas. Let’s start clearing them out.

Michael Bay, we’ve got a jail cell for you. Kevin Tsujihara, head of Warner Brothers, one of your execs said piracy was not a big deal. You’re a collaborator, we can send you to prison also. Adam Sandler, there’s a wing in a penitentiary going to be named after you.

It’s time to give up the fantasy that Hollywood offers any clear and personal connection to you. I love movies, but I detest the current corporate system that creates blockbusters as “deals” and then involves itself in international politics that trample on individual rights.

It’s just one more reason why my movie choices are becoming more independent and local.

If you oppose the TPP, you should contact your representative and senator right now. A vote in Congress is imminent.

Variety reports that last year, attendance for the 18-24 year-old age bracket in movie theaters dropped like a stone. It’s serious because, you know, everyone else is dead and will never benefit from films aimed toward them:

The number of frequent moviegoers in the all-important 18-24 age group plunged an unprecedented 21% in 2013, according to MPAA annual statistics released Tuesday at Cinemacon, while attendance in the 12-17 age bracket also saw a precipitous drop off, falling almost 15%.

Frequent filmgoers from 12-24 are likely spending much of their previous moviegoing time watching a variety of other screens.

“We can embrace technology, and use it to complement our offerings,” Dodd added.

I practically shat blood laughing so hard when reading these statements. This is the same Chris Dodd that backed the SOPA and PIPA legislations–so much so that he extorted the White House to try and have its support. SOPA and PIPA would have destroyed the internet as we know it with opposition to the legislation coming from internet companies that regularly help Hollywood promote its films. The public response to Dodd and SOPA/PIPA supporters was a whole lot of this.

Now, Dodd wants to urge the industry to use technology, i.e the internet, to boost theater tix sales. Never mind that he tried to explode it a couple of years ago and will, no doubt, try again, unless Dodd has some other new type of technology he wants to introduce to the world. Oh wait, I forgot, Hollywood doesn’t have one.

From BuzzFeed comes the news that, until recently, Mitt Romney should have been talking like a pirate on Sept. 19:

Mitt Romney’s recently released tax returns show the governor recently sold off investments in the Chinese online-video company Youku, a Chinese version of YouTube. The site was launched in 2006 and quickly became a haven for downloading illegal American content. The site has been trying to repair its image as a piracy portal since lawsuits have caused them to remove unauthorized content”

Oops! Looks like it’s another Mittstake. He’s going to need a ledger to keep track of them all. Anyone out there in his 1% donor clan with Excel experience?

Do you think he sneaked out of Kim Dotcom’s mansion just before the MPAA Chris Dodd authorities invaded?

“Did you know they even have an Apple store?” Romney said at a rally. “It’s a fake Apple store; they sell counterfeit Apple products. This is wrong. We’re gonna crack down on China when they manipulate their currency, when they steal our goods, when they don’t protect our intellectual property. We’re gonna make sure that China understands we mean business.”

If you want proof of the current fucked up state of copyright enforcement, you needn’t look further than a couple of headlines from the past week.

Pirate Bay co-founder, Gottfrid Svartholm Warg, was arrested in Cambodia with the reporting from Murdoch-owned assrag The Wall Street Journal using words like “mastermind” and “notorious” to send the boogeyman shivers down your spine. The actual crime that Warg committed, of course, is helping develop a platform on which individuals can share files and get the word out about movies and music that you may never otherwise hear about. That’s why super rich ABBA founder Bjorn Ulvaeus can be pissed off about sharing files while struggling indie musicians depend on it for exposure. And since the CEO of Universal Music just admitted that he doesn’t create art, that puts Bjorn, creator of soulless music in the company of a soulless music exec. Won’t help you much in the court of public opinion, guys.

Meanwhile, Troma, a film company in existence for over 3 decades, announced it has released 150 films on YouTube for free, including their signature flick The Toxic Avenger. Can you imagine a major Hollywood studio announcing they would release hundreds of classic movies online for free?

Or can you imagine them forcing Congress to pass a law allowing movie copyrights to be held for “death+70 years” and chase after people who could actually help those movies gain new audiences?

Kevin Collier at The Daily Dot picks up on something Chris Dodd said a few days ago in discussing SOPA and other related anti-piracy legislation:

“I can’t say anything to them (Congress) about this for another seven months, but I think my colleagues understand how important this is,” he said in an interview with Variety.

Dodd has to wait because of legislation passed requiring him, as a former Senator, to wait until a full two years after leaving office to lobby anyone in Congress.

Does the phrase “my colleagues” refer to others in the MPAA or to his former co-horts on Capitol Hill? I wonder.

Now that the internet has the early word that he’s going to pull this stunt and try more anti-piracy legislation–albeit a “gentler” sounding variety–I’m sure he’ll be countered. Keep people informed and join organizations like Fight for the Future to help stop future attacks.

He knows that the campaigns of passing laws like SOPA, PIPA, ACTA and CISPA have all gone over like lead balloons. Perhaps he doesn’t want to believe that file sharing doesn’t hurt the studios’ bottom lines, but the numbers don’t lie.

So what to do? Rebrand. But how do you do that when you’ve been pushing the copier-as-thief meme forovertwodecades? It’s going to be tough to counter your sworn arch-enemies by saying they are perhaps just a little bit right, no matter what sort of covert PR campaign you’re planning next. Somehow, I don’t think that approach is going to help avoid an eventual lawsuit and further embarrassment if Kim Dotcom doesn’t go to trial.

Does the MPAA understand how big a hole they’re digging for themselves when they don’t or can’t respond to criticism with any understanding of how they are hurting the film industry?

Torrent Freak wrote about the MPAA’s response to a previous criticism touting they did not even know Hollywood history. In short, Thomas Edison formed the Motion Picture Patents Company to protect his copyrights. William Fox and other film company founders headed out west to a place called Hollywood to avoid the group and pirated movies at a profit.

Copyhype somewhat “countered” this charge with the statement that seems to suggest that the thought of heading out west to pirate films was a “little bit of historical revisionism.”

But consider this paragraph that Copyhype said was the real issue with MPCC:

The independents weren’t infringing on any patents themselves, they were violating the license and tie-in agreements that came with the MPPC’s equipment. The MPPC did enjoy some early success with its litigation efforts, convincing several courts that illegal restraint of trade was not a defense to patent infringement.4

But the MPPC didn’t rely solely on the law — Edison enforced the Trust’s domination with violence. Hired thugs would smash cameras and raid the independents’ places of business.5 Historian Thaddeus Rockwell notes the extent of the violence perpetuated by the Trust: “They seized film, beat up directors and actors, forced audiences out of theaters, smashed the nickelodeon arcades and set fire to entire city blocks where they were concentrated.” (bold emphasis mine)

Ah, so it wasn’t films that were pirated but equipment. That certainly makes a difference in the scheme of things doesn’t it? Honestly, do you think that the potential of thugs coming to beat up filmmakers and actors because of pirated equipment wasn’t used as a deterrent to independent filmmaking?

California courts eventually ruled that the Patents Company’s licensing practices presented “a potential power of evil” over indie movie producers and ruled against them.

Isn’t this turning out to become the pattern with Kim Dotcom? Seize his property and assets only to find a court rules against the FBI and he may not even go to trial now?

FREE MEDIA!

TUGM is a community-arts organization dedicated to locally-produced transmedia.
What is transmedia? We like to think of it as:
VIDZ PIX TXT TRAX.
We advocate for independent artists and content creators. We produce live events to strengthen the local arts community. We also organize our own original transmedia productions.
Based in Chicago.
Shy, Ill 4EVA